Ukrainian and Polish presidents honor UCU vice-rector (12/24/06)

Ukrainian and Polish presidents honor UCU vice-rector

by Mariana Karapinka and Petro Didula

LVIV - Myroslav Marynovych, first vice-rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) in Lviv, has been honored by the presidents of both Ukraine and Poland. A founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and an initiator of efforts at Ukrainian-Polish reconciliation, Mr. Marynovych, along with other members of the group, received the order "For Courage" (first degree) from President Viktor Yushchenko on November 9. On November 10 he received the Equestrian Cross of the Order "for Service" in the name of Polish President Lech Kaczynski from General Consul of the Republic of Poland in Ukraine Wieslaw Osuchowski, on the occasion of Polish Independence Day.

The Ukrainian Helsinki Group recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its founding. The group's task was to monitor human rights violations in Soviet Ukraine, and the members suffered repressions for this. Mr. Marynovych, for example, was in the gulag from 1977 to 1987.

Mr. Marynovych is also one of the initiators of an annual joint prayer service held at the graves of Ukrainian and Polish soldiers who died in the Ukrainian-Polish War of 1918-1920 and are buried in Lviv's Lychakiv Cemetery. He also was a co-initiator of meetings of leading Ukrainian and Polish intellectuals, held under the theme "Ukrainians and Poles: What should we do with our history?"

During the awards ceremony, Mr. Marynovych said: "We cannot accept this decision from those who with one hand honor the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, but with the other reject the resolution to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the chief members of this group, Gen. Petro Grigorenko." Addressing President Yushchenko and other participants, he underscored: "We cannot accept this resolution from Parliament, the majority of which still calls the members of OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] and the soldiers of UPA [Ukrainian Insurgent Army] 'bandits' and 'all dirty.' "

"However," continued Mr. Marynovych, "in your case, Mr. President, we accept this sign from the hands of a person who, for the first time in the history of Ukraine, raised the honoring of the victims of the Holodomor to the national level, and is demanding the honoring of the soldiers of UPA. We accept this sign from the hands of a president whom we can criticize, and it is in precisely this that freedom lies. For us, human rights defenders, this has decisive significance."

Father Borys Gudziak, Ph.D., rector of the UCU, said, "For me, Myroslav Marynovych has been a hero for a long time, for almost 30 years, in the summer of 1977, when I first had university experience at the Harvard Ukrainian Studies Summer School." He added: "Myroslav Marynovych was then sentenced for his human rights activities in the Helsinki Group. The students of the Harvard Summer School created in the middle of the university campus a symbolic concentration camp, and the whole student action in defense of political prisoners was held under the slogan 'Freedom for Marynovych and Matusevych.' I never imagined, and at that time was not even able to dream, that this figure so heroic for me would become my closest comrade."

Mr. Marynovych has worked at the UCU (first known as the Lviv Theological Academy) since 1997. He is the founder and head of UCU's Institute of Religion and Society, and also is an advisor on ecumenical issues to Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Mr. Marynovych will be featured at a benefit luncheon for the UCU to be held on Sunday, December 3, at the Ukrainian Cultural Center, 26601 Ryan Road, Warren, MI 48091. For further information readers may call 773-235-8462.

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